With moderate falls, Wall Street closed the last day of an exceptional year. Not only did the performance of the three main indices stand out, but also that of various trends that have strengthened and continue to generate expectations for next year.
He Dow Jonescomposed of the shares of 30 giants, ended this year at 42,544.22 points, with an accumulated annual advance of 12.88%, while the S&P 500 gained 23.31% at 5,881.63 and the Nasdaq Composite It advanced 28.64% during the year to 19,310.79 points.
Despite the moderate falls in the indices on this last day of 2024 (0.07%, 0.43% and 0.9%, respectively), expectations in the market are positive, with trends that are gaining more strength, led by technology. artificial intelligence (AI).
AI and other trends
Inside the artificial intelligencePrecisely, the stock with the best performance was found among the largest companies on the market, which make up the S&P 500: Palantir Technologieswhich had an impressive 330% annual gain for its investors.
The company, dedicated to processing large volumes of data, has million-dollar contracts with the US government, which has even allowed it to surpass market and artificial intelligence giants such as Nvidia (+170 percent).
The artificial intelligence trend has boosted these companies among others such as the chip manufacturer Broadcom (+109%) or the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (+90%). The bet of greater demand for chips pushes them.
“Valuations have skyrocketed amid rising stocks, but we believe AI growth is going to continue and move from hardware to software in a massive way,” said Greg Bassuk of AXS Investments.
Other relevant trends were bitcoinwhich continued to encourage values such as Coinbase (+33.24%) thanks to the approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds, and weight loss treatments such as the famous Tirzepatideof Eli Lilly (+33.78%).
The magnificent 7
Apple (+30%) remained the most valuable company in the market, with 3.78 billion dollars in capitalization, and Nvidia came in second place with 3.29, closely followed by Microsoft (+13%), which had a more muted performance this year.
For its part, amazon (+43.04%) and Alphabet (+35.28%), Google’s parent company, advanced thanks to artificial intelligence, but in the case of Amazon, hand in hand with cloud computing, and in that of Alphabet, with quantum computing.
Meta Platforms (+64.03%), Facebook’s parent company, which also invested heavily in the development of AI, had one of the best performances of the group, also thanks to the fact that its income is diversified in advertising and new trends.
tesla (+60%) was a particular case. The manufacturer of electric cars remained underperforming most of the year, but Donald Trump’s victory and his close relationship with Elon Musk have boosted the stock since November.
The expectations
Investors will be attentive in 2025 to the performance of the United States economy, still in a context of struggle by the Federal Reserve (Fed) against inflation. Above all, bets on rates will be relevant.
In the political sphere, the decisions of the new administration of donald trump will play an important role, with a mix of optimism that Trump will cut corporate taxes but also boost inflation.
“Investors should be cautious about the impact of the Trump administration. Additionally, instability driven by geopolitics, specifically the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the Middle East could impact,” Bassuk added in a note.
